Say hello to the hottest in­com­ing trends for 2019

Are you start­ing the new year with a new project? Why not get an inside scoop on the hottest trends around the cor­ner? Toni Sa­batino, the award-win­ning de­signer be­hind Toni Sa­batino Style in New York, keeps her fin­ger on the pulse to de­liver her clients cut­ting-edge home in­te­ri­ors. Th­ese are her top five trend pre­dic­tions for 2019.

1. ‘HID­DEN’ KITCHENS

As much as we love be­ing able to see our liv­ing rooms from our kitchens, the view from the other side isn’t al­ways as at­trac­tive. From the couch, the sight of blenders, toast­ers, re­frig­er­a­tors and dish­wash­ers can dis­rupt the feel of com­mon ar­eas.

“The open kitchen trend en­cour­ages lots of hid­den stor­age and fully in­te­grated ap­pli­ances for a stream­lined look,” Sa­batino says. “Tall walls of stor­age and ap­pli­ances paired with a large is­land with seat­ing for prep­ping and en­ter­tain­ing con­tinue to gain pop­u­lar­ity. Cab­i­net man­u­fac­tur­ers are cre­at­ing slid­ing and pocket door so­lu­tions that hide cook­ing and sink ar­eas as well.”

“I think that sim­ple, clean lines us­ing or­ganic ma­te­ri­als is a trend that will stay with us for some time,” Sa­batino says. “Wood, stone, iron, matte black and tiles in col­ors found in na­ture cre­ate a neu­tral, con­tem­po­rary look. Ac­cented with in­dus­trial-look kitchen fur­ni­ture and open shelv­ing, this style is so­phis­ti­cated and fam­i­lyfriendly, as the fin­ishes gen­er­ally have great dura­bil­ity.”

3. SMART(ER) AP­PLI­ANCES

Smart dish­wash­ers and clothes dry­ers can al­ready text you when they’re fin­ished, but 2019 is the year that ap­pli­ances will be even more con­nected and help­ful.

“There are now nu­mer­ous ap­pli­ance man­u­fac­tur­ers that of­fer con­nec­tiv­ity through your phone or with voice con­trol,” Sa­batino says. “This con­ve­nience helps you mul­ti­task and save time. New smart fea­tures also al­low for down-

load of recipes and net­work-en­abled di­ag­nos­tics for ser­vice.”

4. WIRE­LESS CHARG­ING STA­TIONS

How many times have you been work­ing off of a recipe on your phone in the kitchen, only to have it die mid-stir? Into 2019, we’re get­ting our long charger cords off of the coun­ters — and away from the splash­ing sink wa­ter. We can now charge wire­lessly through our coun­ter­tops, which helps re­duce clut­ter and in­con­ve­nience.

“I think the con­ve­nience of wire­less, in­vis­i­ble charg­ing sta­tions in kitchen coun­ters will be­come main­stream,” Sa­batino says. “We are never far from our phones, and it seems safer and more con­ve­nient to be able to charge wire­lessly in the kitchen.”

5. HEALTH­IER, EAS­IER COOK­ING

Con­vec­tion steam ovens and in­duc­tion stove­tops are growing in pop­u­lar­ity as they be­come more ac­ces­si­ble and eas­ier to in­te­grate and use. They make fast, healthy cook­ing much sim­pler. And in 2019, we can get closer to achiev­ing our res­o­lu­tions with the help of bet­ter home cook­ing.

“Steam cook­ing re­tains nu­tri­ents de­stroyed by mi­crowave cook­ing and is also a very ef­fi­cient way to re­heat food with­out chang­ing the tex­ture,” Sa­batino says. “Con­vec­tion adds the brown­ing op­tion to steam cook­ing to cre­ate health­ier, crispier, juicier dishes in less time than a stan­dard oven. In­duc­tion is safe and ef­fi­cient, as the power of mag­nets is used to gen­er­ate heat and turns the ves­sel into the heat source. It sounds com­plex, but in truth, it’s very sim­ple, easy to op­er­ate, and boils wa­ter faster than gas. Look for in­duc­tion to make a ma­jor im­pact for its per­for­mance, easy-to-clean sur­face, ease of use and safety.”

Dream­stime/TNS

In 2019, we’ll be mix­ing more nat­u­ral-look­ing ma­te­ri­als into our mod­ern de­signs and hid­ing our ap­pli­ances for a cleaner look.